Starbucks Red Cups

Christmas brings many traditions back that we see companies take part in annually, and Starbucks Red Cups are one of these. As part of the launch of these iconic red cups making an appearance again, the popular coffee shop chain Starbucks created a four-metre high installation made to look like a Christmas tree, created from Starbucks red cups.

The installation was erected in Kings Cross’s train station in London and required customers to tweet in with the hashtag #RedCups and share their red cup moments with pictures. This idea of sharing images and tweets on twitter and Instagram was linked to their social campaign where they wanted customers to tweet their experiences throughout the Christmas period. With each time the hashtag being displayed a limited edition emoji of a Red Cup would appear.

This campaign in London aim was to involve their customers passing by asking them to tweet with #RedCups and the more tweets that were submitted the more the Christmas tree lit up. This campaign is an example of Sensory Marketing as Starbucks were promoting their festive drinks over the Christmas period, by using the human senses to market their product. 

Vision, the four metre high installation was used to attract the attention of consumers. The installation was situated in the middle of a busy London train station and is hard to miss by all commuters passing by. Consumers that were attracted over and took part in these campaign were presented with a gift card from Starbucks to use over the Christmas period, as a way of thanking their customers. As well vision, smell is another sense used. The installation was designed to smell like Starbuck’s product, the Gingerbread Latte, which is a limited edition drink at this season and is a popular drink for this company. 

This smell is something that is aimed to stay in the thoughts of the consumer in hope that they remember about this product later in the day, potentially whilst passing a Starbucks, resulting them in buying a product. 

Not On The High Street: Gift-O-Matic

Another experiential marketing campaign that took place during the Christmas period in 2015 was the “Gift-O-Matic” by Not On The High Street, which was a twitter-powered vending machine. 

Not On The High Street is a website that sells unique handmade gifts, made by small businesses and their goal is to: “to hunt out the most original items from the best creative small businesses, and bring them together in one place, making it easy for people to browse and buy.”

Perfect for last minute shoppers, two of these vending machines were placed in two of London’s busiest train stations, Waterloo and Paddington, on 21^st December.

The machines will interact with the customers by getting them to tweet in the company @notonthehighstreet with their location and a hashtag that perfectly describes the person they are buying the present for, choosing from 5 different personality types such as: #Foodie, #PetLover or #Gardener. 

Customers were then given dispensed a free gift. Inside was a range of gifts that were all prodicts from 5,000 small businesses that are featured on the “Not On The High Street” website. 

The vending machines were reportedly not hard to miss in the busy train stations as they were all brightly coloured with each present dispensed individually gift grabbed, with Not On the High Street bright coloured gift wrap with huge bows covering them. Vision is the most targeted sensory in this campaign as it is using bright colours and oversized material to catch the eye of the consumer gaining their attention. The gift wrap was purposely covered in the company’s name as a reminder for the consumer where the gift came from with details of the company website. So in the future the consumer can access this website again. Which is spreading the word of this company through suppling consumers with free gifts to get a taster of products are on website.

Not On The High Street’s aims of this campaign were to attract new customers and giving them, and existing customers, a new surprise for them and a delight at Christmas, whilst trying to give them some ease to their Christmas Shopping (especially those who had left it to the last minute). By getting the customers to tweet in it is spreading the word about Not On The High Street, expanding their market, by getting their customers to actually spread the word for them. 

The machines were said to be attracting attention from the moment they were opened and were a great way to spread Christmas cheer, as well as getting the name of the company Not On The High Street spread around. The company supports small businesses so each of the gifts given were unique and can all be found on the company’s website, the idea behind this way to avoid panic buying and to give a present that was thoughtful. In hope that in the following years, the customers remember this website and use it.  

Cadbury

Cadbury’s Advent Calendar 

There was a lot of discussion around Cardbury releasing their sales pitch for the Christmas period, as it was argued that it was bigger and better than Coca-Cola’s. Cadbury’s of course “has a well-loved place in families homes over the Christmas period” so to create an experience for their customers this Christmas they reportedly spent over £10 million on this campaign to enhance their brand and bring happiness to their consumers. Which was shared as “Cadbury’s biggest ever advent calendar. 24 trucks. 24 doors. Opening daily in 24 different locations. Bringing joyful festive surprises to the nation on the countdown to Christmas. #cadvent”

On November 7^th Cardbury released their Christmas advert which showed what their sales pitch for Christmas 2015 was going to be. It showed 24 different Lorries being packed filled with chocolate and Christmas magic, each with a huge gold number ranging from 1-24 on the exterior. Each lorry was to be seen as a different “door” of an advent calendar, linking to one of their products that they produce each year, the chocolate countdown advent calendar. Starting on December 1^st right up until December 24^th a lorry would be sent out from Cadbury HQ each day to 24 different locations across the UK, the contents inside were a surprise each day for each location. 

Cadbury’s is wanting to enhance its brand by taking part in this new marketing pitch, they are wanting consumers to see that their product is more than a want in life, it is a need. In hope that they change consumers to buying their products to more of habitual decision, where consumers do not think about other options, it is an unconscious decision to buy this product. 

To successfully do this Cadbury’s needed to produce a campaign that would tap in to the desires of the public and create motivation for them to take part in an activity in return for a sort of ‘reward’ that, of course, was a taster of their chocolate. So by producing these 24 lorries that go out to different locations across the UK is a way of doing this, in hope that the consumers will change their opinion of the company’s product, in this case chocolate, being a need instead of a want, a dream that all consumer company’s want of their products. 

One of the campaigns that took place was on 2^nd December in Bath, which you can see below. 

In this campaign it got the public to take a picture in a spotlight underneath some mistletoe sharing a kiss with a loved one, in order to share the Christmas love and spirit around, but most importantly for the company, to receive a free gift from Cadbury, which was some chocolate.  By doing this it taps in to the desires of the public and creates motivation for them to take part in this activity, which involves little risk with it so it will encourage more people to get involved. 

By creating something like the kiss-o-gram sort of activity in Bath, they are providing a platform that will create a positive atmosphere, in hope that it lasts in the audiences’ mind to enhance the brand image and create these positive connections. You are also reminded to share your photograph that is taken on to all your social media sites with the hashtag movement of #cadvent.

Other lorry doors saw an edible Santa Grotto, a huge cracker, create a bauble to put on a Christmas tree, music performances and flash mobs, all accompanied by chocolate! By giving this free chocolate it will give a taste to new and old consumers, reminding or an opportunity for people to try this chocolate and see how it tastes, in hope that they go out and buy some more in return. 

Did you see either of the Coca Cola Truck or Cadbury’s campaign this Christmas? If so, which one did you think was better?

#IfCarlsbergDid

 

#IfCarlsbergDidChristmasTrees

Following on from a previous post about “Possibly the best poster in the World” that Carlsberg did back in April 2015 this blog is another example of experiential marketing that this brand has invested in. 

This campaign also contributes to their series of #IfCarlsbergDid to continue new methods of promoting their brand by engaging consumers in new and different ways, and their most current activity is the “If Carlsberg did Christmas trees” which has had positive feedback. (You can see the campaign video at the end of this post). Christmas is all about getting together with family and friends and enjoying eachothers company, with festive food and drink, so Carlsberg took this opportunity to use this festive season as a good time to market their brand, in hope that consumers would go out and buy some for this holiday!

Carlsberg erected a 27ft Christmas tree in South Bank, London around Christmas time which was covered in Carlsberg “Beerbles” and bottles of Carlsberg. Members of the public (over 18s only) were able to line up and get complimentary Carlsberg, with the first 100 visitors receiving a free limited edition “Beerble” to drink out off. 

Again, similar to the campaign of “Possibly the best poster in the World”, it engages consumers with the taste and visual sensory elements. The audience are able to sample the product as well as being able to see promoting materials such as products they sell hanging from the tree.  

The consumer involvement doesn’t just stop at this event, it opened up the event on to the internet as well. Where audience via the internet were able to take part in a competition with Carlsberg where they had to count how many bottles they could see on the tree to win, which is creating a platform for consumers who weren’t able to attend can still engage with the brand and this brand enhancement idea can travel further. 

By engaging the audience with this experience to test their product could potentially open up a new market of consumers and it has very little monetary risk as it is totally free to try! This leads to reduced functional risk when the consumer is going to be purchasing this product, they have already sampled this product so they know what they are going to be getting for their money, which may influence their decision making. 

So overall, why wouldn’t you want to go along and experience this?